Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus, an image capturing apparatus, a method of controlling the same, and a storage medium.
Description of the Related Art
Generally, if an amount of light of a light source is insufficient when capturing a subject, the captured image becomes darker. A method by which capturing is performed after irradiating light on the subject using an illumination apparatus such as a flash, for example, and ensuring that there is a sufficient amount of light to make a dark image brighter is known.
However, if the distance from the illumination apparatus to a subject differs for each subject, the amount of light irradiated on each subject differs, and therefor there are cases in which the amount of light irradiated is not appropriate depending on the subject. For example, if light is irradiated from an illumination apparatus so that the amount of light irradiated on a main subject is appropriate, there is the possibility that blown-out highlights will arise when the amount of light is excessive in subjects that are closer to the illumination apparatus than the main subject. Meanwhile, there is the possibility that shadow detail loss will arise when the amount of light is insufficient in subjects that are further from the illumination apparatus than the main subject.
With respect to this problem, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2012-165171 proposes a technique for adjusting the brightness by applying different gains to subjects in accordance with information of the distances from the illumination apparatus to the subjects in order to adjust the brightnesses of subjects whose distances from the illumination apparatus are different.
However, with the technique proposed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2012-165171, because the gain is applied by image processing (specifically, the signal is amplified), the noise is also amplified. Also, because the characteristics of the light source are not considered, there are cases in which a light-source color and reflection components according to the light irradiated from the illumination apparatus cannot be reproduced simply by reducing the differences in brightness of the subjects, and as a consequence it results in an unnatural image.